52nd Congress of the European Regional Science Association: "Regions in Motion - Breaking the Path", 21-25 August 2012, Bratislava, Slovakia

Abstract:

It is necessary for policy-makers to assess region's overall performance and given sector's efficiency relative to other industry sector's performance in the region to achieve regional policy objectives. Regional economics has attempted to develop techniques to analyze differences among regional growth patterns. Shift-share analysis is one method to describe growth of sub-national economies. Shift–share analysis is a traditional tool for interregional comparison, measuring and evaluating sectoral performance of a specific region over a period of time. The purpose of shift share analysis is to provide local policymakers with simple and easy to use tools that will assist them in describing and documenting changes in their local economy in a way that enables them to make sound and informed decisions. In shift share analysis, the chance in employment is partitioned into three components measuring the influence of national share, industrial mix, and regional shift. The aim of this study is to measure and evaluate regional economic performance in Turkey, in order to able to achieve regional policy objectives. In this study the shift share analysis was used to measure regional economic performance. Regional industrial employment (15-37 codes - NACE REV 1.1) changes in Turkey estimated in 26 NUTS 2 regions from 1992 to 2008. The results of shift share analysis of manufacturing employment change in Turkey from 1992 to 2008 indicates that national share component has a great effect on total manufacturing employment increment during that time. In addition to that, industrial mix component has an effect on reducing employment by 7.962 and regional shift component has an effect on reducing employment by 9.464. According to the results of shift share analysis there is only one region which has both positive industrial mix and regional shift components. Also four regions which include the most developed regions in Turkey, such as Ýstanbul and Ýzmir sub-regions, have positive industrial mix and negative regional shift components. With the helping of these results, policy makers should reconsider the regional development policies in Turkey.